This has become a particular obsession of mine, so I hope you will indulge me for bit while you read this. There is a lot of conversation on these forums about difficulty levels. Rightly so, the game must be a challenge. hardcoe mode is certainly a step in the right direction, though other than periodically checking your H20 and sleep levels, there isn't much else to it.

In my opinion, any tweaks to hardcoe mode are only skirting around the edges, at least in terms of difficulty. My opinion is that the biggest advantage that the player character has over every other enemy in the game is this - the amount of weapons that you can carry. In my opinion, being able to call upon any weapon you want, whether it be a Gatling Laser, Shotgun, Rifle, Super Sledge etc at any point during the game, for any situation you may find yourself in, is a tremendous advantage that no enemy in the game can even come close to matching. In my view, being able to carry multiple weapons like this should be one of those insane perks you get by reaching level 30. Or, at the very least, an option you can toggle on/off at the beginning of the game, rather then being the default setup.

So let me suggest the following, its a way of redressing the balance, meaning that you can only carry what any other NPC can carry. More or less, anyway. Simply put, you can only carry three active weapons at any one time, consisting of the following -

- one dual-handed rifle/shotgun (Commando perk),

- and any two from the pistol (Gunslinger perk), Melee, or Unarmed categories.

You can substitute one of these with any weapon you find on your travels, but you must leave your current weapon (that occupies its slot) behind in this case. Of course, picking up a weapon to use it immediately for repair is fine. So, this means no stockpiling weapons for caps - after all, there are plenty of other ways to get caps in FNV.

So, who is with me on this? On your next playthrough (I don't recommend it on the first one, at least), why not give it a try?

Reduce carry weight capacity on hardcoe to be more realistic... then you could tote around a couple extra guns or suits of armor, but only if you carry less ammo/food/water/drugs. Give weight to drugs as well, even lead has 0.0000 weight that adds up to a lot when you have tons of it. Hell just giving drugs weight could tip the balance.

1: Trail Carbine
2: Ranger Sequoia
3: Chance's Knife

Game is quite playable like that. Since you are going for HALO rules toss in some sort of hand thrown explosives.

My followers can only carry so much. I don't like the idea because in New Vegas I find its no the lack of guns thats a boths be its the lack of ammo. I can have many guns but only enough ammo for one or two types of guns. (I am not complaning of about ammo). So if I could only carry 3 guns and I don't have ammo for any of them or I run out I would be in trouble. Then what amout melee weapons and unarmed? Would they be added to this only allowed 3 weapons?

Still I try to only carry weapons that use the same type of ammo.

Personally, I dislike weapon-carry limits in games. If they are enforced by the game, it feels very artificial. I'm already limited by my inventory (weight limit). If I want to carry nothing but guns, why can't I? If you want to choose to limit your weapons to make room for more scavenged junk, that's your perogative, but I like the freedom to fill up my inventory with whatever I feel like carrying.

I hated this about FarCry2 (the very limited weapon slots)... I wanted to carry a shotgun and a sniper rifle, but because they were both 'primary' weapons, I could only have one, even though I had a free slot for a 'big weapon'. These sort of arbitrary constraints often act as a 'fun limit', especially in a free-roaming loot-collecting game like this one.

I don't like arbitrary restrictions. Ideally the game would have some sort of backpack system where you would have one primary weapon and one sidearm ready to draw and the rest would be in your backpack which you'd have to put down and search through to get another gun (the more is in it the longer it takes). Also, there should be speed and stealth penalties for carrying too much, so you can carry 10 rifles in your backpack if you want but you'll be slow and loud.

I see what you mean, after all its only a game. But as a challenge to the traditional hardcoe mode it certainly would force us to make decisions and specialise in a certain weapon type.

Mainly, it reinforces character type. If you're a sniper character that relies mainly of a Hunting/Sniper Rifle as your main weapon, then it means that you have to pick off your enemies at distance, or maybe not attack them at all. As opposed to reverting to that Shotgun/Minigun/Gatling Laser/Missile Launcher you have in your back pocket, just in case things go wrong.

In my opinion, Fallout is all about making decisions. Whenever you complete a quest you have to decide between two paths. As a result your karma/faction reputation etc will alter accordingly. So, its not possible to have the best of all worlds at any one time - choose one path, and you block off another. Why should weapons be any different?

I would oppose it. Nothing stops a player from self-limiting his weapon inventory if he wants to. I see no reason to try and imposing such limits on other players who don't want them.

If you are talking about a voluntary mod, they are out there. One example is the optional 'six hands' plugin in the HAM (hardcoe Advanced Mods) mods that can be found on the Nexus.

If they patched in a weapon carry limit option I would be so thankful.

I am a huge fan of STALKER and it had a much lower weight limit than Fallout. This made me prioritize items based on what my next activity might need, such as: healing items, ammo, explosives for crowd control, sniper rifle if I had plenty of line of sight or height advantage, shotgun if I am going door to door in some kind of structure, automatic weapon if I just want to be ready for anything and grenades for "oh! [censored]!" moments. realistically if I wanted to be ready for anything I could only carry a few healing items, a few grenades, and maybe 2 large weapons.... but with the ammo needed I could not pick up any loot to sell. So the point is you could be ready for any situation that may arise OR you could leave space to scavenge. In a long dungeon it was very likely that you would use up almost all of your ammo, grenades, healing stuff and that would free up space to carry loot back to town for profit. It would be jarring for people used to not having any meaningful restrictions... but would really add to the depth of survival.

I think that its far from arbitrary - it simply brings the player character to a level that is on par with any other NPC in the game. Its much more of a challenge. In fact, I'm thinking of doing an Iron Man (die once, and you start over) runthrough in F3 using the weapon carry limit highlighted here.

But yeah, I agree with your idea - you can carry over my suggested limit if you like, but you will instantly be overencumbered even if you are well below your carry limit.

No.
I like being able to carry around whatever I can carry around.

Anybody who wants to play this way is free to limit themself, and it would extremely painful for people who don't want to play this way to be forced into it.

I agree entirely with both of these, it should not be mandatory. An option to toggle on/off would be good, or perhaps incorporated into the hardcoe mode somehow. But as an increased challenge to the game, when hardcoe mode comes up short, surely its worthy of attention?

I only carry a couple of weapons anyways. I've been doing that since Fallout 3. Anyone who's actually carried a rifle and ammo and had to hump it over a long distance, knows that carrying multiple rifles is just ridiculous. I carry two guns, a knife, and a few grenades. Here are my setups:

Scoped Rifle with about 200-360 rounds
Pistol with about 120-180 rounds
Chance's Knife
Frag x 2 or 3
Pulse Grenade x 2 or 3

Non-scoped Rifle with about 200-360 rounds
Pistol ""
Chances Knife
Frags ""
P Grenades ""
Binos

Shotgun with 150-200 rounds
Pistol ""
Chances Knife
Frags ""
P Grenades ""

Those are my main load outs when I go out exploring. Obviously the one with a shotgun is for close quarter stuff, which is why I don't bother taking binoculars with it. I feel that going out with two or more rifles, multiple pistols, etc, is just overkill. It's not practical and would be more of a hindrance than anything. That's just me though. This is Fallout and it lets everyone play it the way they want to. Which is a really good thing. The more options they give us, the happier everyone is. Just cause I like to play this way, doesn't mean anyone else will and viceversa.

For people who feel like they have to pick up and/or use everything they find it would be frustrating, that is why it should be put into hardcoe.

I...am not in support of this. Is it realistic to be able to carry around all this stuff? no, your character doesn't even have a backpack. A single duffle bag can hold up to 5 shotguns, I'm not holding the gun atm, so why am I limited as to where I can put it? I am not in favor of this, guns are suprising easy to carry, even in bulk, the only real problem is the weight.

In STALKER you could carry around 10 guns, but you would have no ammo, grenades, armor, healing items... well maybe some, but not enough to keep you going in a real fight.

I restrict as much as I consider to be fun or fitting the role.
Already we have restrictions on how much we can carry, and to effect we can use them;
I.E just becuase I'm toting around a land mine does not mean it's going to be more use than to nobble one foe at low levels ( a crude example ).
Or that I finally find a weapon that can deal with armour, only to realise that it's low condition combined with my skill makes it worthless.

I try to carry a pistol, a rifle, one big ( I.E sniper, hunting or heavy weapon ) with at most another close quarters kill gun at most.
Does not mean everyone will, if you play as I do you'll like it, but that just requires doing it not inforcing it on everyone.
NV on the most part does not inforce itself on the player, and where it does it makes me slightly annoyed even though I can deal with it.

Add in the fact that enemies are to be plain high in health, alot high in DT, ( NCR rangers in combat armour 30+ and depending on how you choose to play can be encountered level 4+, and can't be avoided if you play into a role, rather than against it ).
A lot are fast, most have a high perception rate, making close quarter fights likely in mass speedy groups.
Most ignore your level of DT, most creatures do, and most npc's untill you get a hold of armour over 20 DT, and or perks will.
The 20% damage even with a superior DT is biased towards foes, given that you do not have that high a health really, and npc's and monsters do, you're outnumbered, and use ammo.
The foes are not, the creatures and a few npc's in NV have perks that if were available to the PC, would be considered godly.

Meaning that more limits imposed would just mean at best a harder game, at worst the constant leveled upgrade seen in other games...
.22, 9mm, 10mm, .22 smg, 9mm smg, 10mm smg, 12.7mm, 12.7 smg... so on with all guns.

All of which I could deal with, but why should it be inforced to all, when the game still has such freedom, and is playable by everyone as is.

I already play like this. Even though only one weapon is displayed at a time, I imagine my character having a pistol/SMG on each hip and a rifle on his back behind a backpack holding loot/food/ammo/etc. (I have a backpack mod)

I wouldn't mind hardcoe mode with three weapon "slots" where you can switch during combat. But we should definitely still be able to carry weapons as loot to sell later - these weapons should only be switched to a wield slot outside of combat.

It's a good idea, but I think it should be the player's choice. Why hamper people with things that they don't want.

Player choice FTW.

I think a Weapon Carry Limit is a cool idea, but it should not be mandatory. Some people want to make a character with 10 STR and Strong Back and literally carry an entire arsenal. Not that realistic, but so be it. Besides, it sounds like many people here (including myself) already limit ourselves for RP reasons. Like PROFESSOR said, as someone who has carried a rifle and ammo and a pack on a long hike, I'd rather have less than more. An M-16 and a few full magazines is relatively light compared to how much the average Courier carries on his/her person all the time, even without 10 STR and Strong Back.

How about this: reduce the total carry weight by 1/3, and let us by a pack brahmin. That way, my pack mule wont kill everything with his scoped hunting rifle before I get to smash it with my axe (yes, Boone, I'm looking at you.)

I tend to make characters with a high STR, take the Pack Rat and Strong Back perks, and cart off everything that's not nailed down, however I only keep 3-4 weapons for actual use after selling things off and carry limited amounts of ammo. I do keep a number of full-CND weapons in my chosen base and tend to rotate them in and out every so often as the fancy strikes me. I might go on an expedition with a sniping weapon, an AoE weapon, a pistol, and a melee weapon, and after returning to base change that to 2 heavy weapons, a pistol and a shotgun or SMG, or whatever else I happen to have on hand.

Having played FO1&2 and dealt with limited 'equip' slots, I definitely do not want to return to that mechanic despite the fact it made you stop and consider what you wanted to take with you when poking around inside a ruined building, since it was a bit too restrictive for my liking.

A game play option to have it would be interesting but yeah would need to overhaul the inventory/pip-boy system with weapon slots and maybe even a separate only stored equipment menu. There would need to be a discouragement to switching equipment out mid combat too, the simplest way being to not have the game pause when your accessing the pip boy.

As for it being too restrictive having four slots might be enough to provide flexibility, one main, one secondary, one side arm/melee and a hand grenade/explosives slot.

I could see it working, as someone mentioned like the Stalker games and for future titles it might be interesting to have for the hard core enthusiasts.

That said, simply halving the current carry limit for hardcoe would work just as well.

I like playing in hardcoe. I don't want any such weapon restrictions associated with it. While I don't object to voluntary weapon restrictions as an option for those who want them, I would insist that they be isolated from any other options so that people opting out of them don't also have to opt out of anything else, like playing hardcoe.